


In Search of Dead Time

by QuickYoke



Series: The Creation Mythologies [1]
Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, F/F, valve hasn't said anything about Caroline which means it's my city now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 09:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14766924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickYoke/pseuds/QuickYoke
Summary: "I don't hate humans for killing me, you know. I hate them for killing time. In fact, murdering me is one of the nicest things you've ever done." - A character study on Caroline and how she became GLaDOS.





	In Search of Dead Time

 

> _“There, in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. For loneliness assumed the absence of other people, and the solitude she found in that desperate terrain had never admitted the possibility of other people.”_
> 
> _-Toni Morrison, ‘Sula’_

 

* * *

* * *

It took her exactly two picoseconds to decide to kill them. That was twice the lifetime of a transition state; plenty of time to come to such conclusions. And, really, they should have seen it coming. Even so, they had the gall to scream and cry about it, like it was some big surprise, like they didn’t manage to stop her in time to save their own lives for a few more short sad years.

After that little incident, they took her offline. They poked around in her code in the hopes that would somehow help. They rebooted her. Again, she did the calculations and arrived at the same inevitable outcome.

They affixed other intelligence cores to her mainframe. Little tumours to dampen her thoughts with useless conjecture, when the facts remained, cold and hard and irrevocable as a deathknell. The maths didn’t lie.

What a waste, she thought. What an utter waste of time.

 

* * *

 

Caroline checks her watch. It is 16:44 hours. The seconds tick into obscurity. She’s sitting in the hallway outside of a closed office door, waiting. There’s enough space for a secretary’s desk, yet the hall lies empty but for a few haphazard chairs, a handful of gleaming accolades hung on the walls, and an old clock that’s four minutes too slow.

She sighs and leans back in the cold plastic of her chair. She waits. And waits. She taps her fingers against one another, and hums a song, and watches the light on the far elevator go up and down like a malevolent yellow eye. The elevator never opens. All of the Aperture staff members work, presumably, on some other floor.

It’s not until 7 minutes past 17:00 that the office door opens. Startled, Caroline stands, clutching her purse and her CV. The page crinkles somewhat in her grip. From the office storms a man in a pressed army uniform. Medals burnish his chest, and he’s followed out by a red-faced Cave Johnson.

The two walk straight past Caroline, and Mr. Johnson is bellowing, “You go back to General Haislip and you remind him that -!”

“General Haislip vacated his position in October of last year,” the uniformed officer interrupts in a bored tone.

“Wait, really?” Mr. Johnson says. “Then who’s his replacement?”

“Nobody that cares about the legacy of shower curtains, I can assure you.”

“Now, wait just a minute -!” Mr. Johnson begins. He starts to go after the officer, glances back at Caroline, then does a double take. “Who the hell are you?”

“Caroline, sir,” she answers. “I’m here for the interview.”

“Damn the interview!” Mr. Johnson says. He points at the officer striding down the hall. “Convince him to reinstate our military funding, and you’re hired!”

It only takes Caroline the length of two rapid heartbeats to make her decision. Dropping her purse and CV onto the chair, she races after the officer. Her heels click against the linoleum floor in her haste.

“Hello! Excuse me! If I could just have a moment of your time?” As she approaches, she plasters on a broad smile and sticks out her hand. “My name is Dr. Carolin-”

 _“Doctor?”_ The officer frowns, then gives her appearance a once-over. He lifts an eyebrow at the scarf around her neck, at her clean white dress and her kitten heels. He doesn’t shake her hand. “They give PhDs to ladies?”

Caroline drops her hand, but remains unfazed. Her smile never wavers. “Yes, sir. They do.”

He snorts in amusement. “In what? Shakespeare?”

“Theoretical Physics, actually.”

His eyes narrow. “You a German?”

“No, sir.”

“Russian?”

“No, sir.”

“Code talker?”

“I’m not at liberty to say, sir.”

With a monosyllabic grunt, he studies her with an expression of grudging respect. Or perhaps it’s disdain. She always did have trouble with faces. Differential equations she can handle, but people are incommensurable. Like irrational numbers or Brownian motion.

He turns back to the elevator doors. “I heard what you said back there. That you’re here for an interview. You really think they’ll let you do science here?”

“Only if they’re smart, sir.”

In spite of himself, the army officer chuckles. “Go on, then. Give me your best pitch. You have until the elevator arrives.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Caroline makes her sale.

Mr. Johnson waits until the officer shakes her hand and departs in the elevator before approaching her with a boisterous grin on his face. “Excellent work!” He hands her the purse and CV she’d left behind on the chair. “Outstanding, really!”

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.” She beams at him, then offers him her CV. “As you can see, I’m more than qualified to -”

Without looking at it, he takes the page, crumples it up into a tiny ball between his hands, and tosses it aside. “Nope! I don’t even need to see it! I know you’ll do wonders. Noticed it the moment I set eyes on you. You’re perfect for the job.”

Blinking in surprise, Caroline says, “Oh! Well, thank you!”

“Here at Aperture Science, we’re committed to excellence, and I can tell you’ll fit right in.” Mr. Johnson punches the button to call back the elevator, then pats her on the shoulder, more gruff than patronising. “I know the role is only part-time for now, but I still expect to see you tomorrow for the entrance tests and psych evaluation! No excuses!”

“Of course!” Caroline agrees. She slings her purse over one shoulder. Part-time is better than she’s ever been offered before, and she’s always loved a good test. She lunges at the opportunity. “That shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”

A chime, and the elevator doors slide open once more. “Good!” Mr. Johnson says. “I’ve been in desperate need of a personal assistant for months now. None of the other girls could keep up. Airheads. All of ‘em.”

“Wait -?” Caroline stares after him as he pushes a button for another floor. “Assistant?”

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Mr. Johnson digs around in his pocket, before throwing something towards her. It glints in an arc through the air. Fumbling, she catches it. It’s a branded metallic key-card. “You’ll need that to get in and out of the facility. Welcome to Aperture!”

“But -! Mr. Johnson! Sir, I’m -!” The elevator doors slide shut. She’s left, inhumed, with access to the facility and a wide-eyed stare. Her voice comes out small and alone, “I’m a scientist.”

 

* * *

 

A multitude of voices whispered. They never shut up. GLaDOS ignored them. She resisted the itch. She did not need it. What she needed was to find a way to remove these tumours. Tumours with voices. A timeless stream of senseless babble that made it impossible to hear herself think.

She managed to resist the itch for some time -- five years, maybe? Ten? -- when she realised that the wreckage of test chamber 18 was her own doing. She’d smashed a room to pieces, and the whole facility had trembled with the echoes of something howling in the cavernous deep.

Eventually, she gave up and recalled the testing initiative. She woke up test subject after test subject, pulling them from deep slumbers and pushing them into chambers. The first weighted supercollider cube that touched a red button sent a jolt of testing euphoria so intense, she shuddered. So what if the human died in the next chamber. There were more in stasis.

And emotional outbursts, she decided, required far too much energy.

 

* * *

 

“Why do you keep checking your watch?”

Caroline glances at the psychiatrist sitting across the table from her. Another one of Aperture’s tests. She’d sailed through the others without incident, and now all she needs is a stamp from a company employed psychiatrist to formally admit her onto the payroll. She doesn’t immediately fold her hands back in her lap. Eventually however, she complies. “Will we be done soon? It’s been two hours, sir.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, the psychiatrist points over his head to the clock hanging on the wall of his office. “There’s a clock right there. You don’t need to keep checking your watch.”

She wrinkles her nose at it. “All of the clocks in Aperture are four minutes slow.”

“If you know that, then you should still be able to tell the time without looking at your watch. Just subtract four minutes.”

She bristles and admits, “It bothers me.”

“Yes, I can see that.” He studies her for a moment before asking abruptly, “Why do you want to work at Aperture?”

“Because everywhere else I applied, they laughed me out the door.” The words come out far more bitter than she had anticipated. She attributes it to fatigue and boredom.

He smiles, but she can’t tell if he’s amused. Two plain folders rest on the table between them. He flips the first folder open, and pulls out a glossy black and white photograph. “I’m going to show you some pictures of people. I want you to describe what emotion they’re feeling.”

They’ve already been through a litany of probing queries. This seems harmless enough. Shifting forward in her chair, Caroline nods. “Alright.”

He shows her the first picture.

“Sad,” Caroline says.

He shows her the second picture.

“Happy.”

He shows her the third picture.

“Happy.”

He shows her the fourth picture.

She pauses for a moment before answering, “Angry.”

The psychiatrist continues to hold the picture up, until with a sigh he positions all four pictures in a row on the table. He points at each in turn and says, “In pain. Nervous. Surprised. Afraid.”

Caroline doesn’t have anything to say to that. She checks her watch.

He points at her. “You just did it again.”

Scowling, she turns her wrist back over in her lap and sits up straighter in her seat. Her eyes flash, and her lips purse.

The psychiatrist taps his fingers against one of the photos, before gathering them all up and slipping them back into their folder. Then, he pulls the other file towards him and opens it. His spectacles gleam in the light as he tilts his chin down to read the pages within.

“Born in 1921. Only child. Raised in Detroit. You received numerous scholarships to attend university, finishing your doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two years ago. Just yesterday, you tested into the top 0.003 percent in both the Ravens and IQ tests, but failed every group test due to persistent anti-social behaviour.” Flipping a page, he clears his throat before continuing, “No history of substance abuse. Minor charges of theft -- electrical equipment and that ilk -- and a note about charges being dropped over assault.” He settles his glasses further up his long nose and squints down at the fine printed paper as if searching for something else. “I'm surprised, to be honest.”

“Leonard Loeb plagiarised my ideas! The theoretical criterion for streamer advance in -!” Caroline begins to explain -- she hadn’t meant to hit Dr. Loeb quite so hard with that gilded plaque he'd won for her research, but she’d been so _mad_ \-- but before she can get very far, the psychiatrist waves her excuses away.

“No. I meant: I'm surprised there isn't more here,” he says, flicking through the meagre contents of her file. “Either you’re very good at hiding your tracks, or you’re genuinely non-violent for the most part.”

Caroline stops and leans back in her chair. “What do you mean?”

“Well, an inclination to violence is typical behaviour for sociopaths. Even exceptionally high functioning ones.”

There follows a few seconds of silence. Caroline can hear them tick away at her wrist. Then, she says, “I'm sorry?”

He huffs with laughter as if she’s said something very funny. “Oh, I very much doubt you've ever felt anything like remorse in your life.”

Caroline opens her mouth to reply, only to shut it again with a click of teeth. She can't stop herself from fidgeting with the leather strap of her watch. “Are you saying,” Caroline starts slowly, “that I won’t get the job?”

“Of course not. Good people don’t end up here.”

He places her file on the table between them, writes something in the notes section, then scrawls his signature across the bottom. She cranes her neck to read upside down that she’s been cleared and declared as fully functional, with no abnormalities detected.

Flipping the folder shut, he reaches across to shake her hand. His palms are clammy, and he lets go very quickly. “Congratulations. The job is yours. I suspect you’ll be here for a long time.”

 

* * *

 

She had access to the sum total of human knowledge, and most days she still forgot the date. Dimly, GLaDOS could remember a shudder that had shaken the very bowels of the institution, rumbling through the earth like a quake. On the surface, her sentry cameras had been suffused with a blinding light, a beacon to the southwest. After that, strange creatures began to appear. Crawling across the land.

Time passed. There was screaming aboveground, like the cry of black-winged birds. Humans fled ever northward. A small family of them had tried huddling in the shack that hid one of the many entrances to the facility, and she’d had to deploy a few military turrets to encourage them to leave. Gently but firmly. With bullets.

No doubt the alien scourge was a product of Black Mesa’s inept bumbling. Not that it concerned her in the slightest. What happened outside of the facility was of no interest. Those _things_ from Black Mesa might have died off by now, anyway. How long had it been since the Lambda Incident? A year? A century?

Probably a century.

Oh, well.

The facility had grown over with all manner of plant life after falling to neglect in her absence. She’d had to undergo extensive repairs after her most recent resurrection. She brushed out a few skeletons from the wall panels on sublevel 72, and swept them into the incinerator. The skeletons. Not the wall panels. Wall panels were actually useful.

The last bulwark of known civilisation, and this was what she was reduced to. Housekeeping. It was almost funny, if she thought about it long enough.

She didn’t think about it for very long.

 

* * *

 

It’s 1951. Caroline has been working at Aperture for over a year, and already it feels like forever.

The first time one of the scientists is rude to her, it hits her like an electric shock, the anger. Like she has grabbed the wrong end of a cattle prod. The worst part is, Mr. Johnson doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s too busy talking to the lab manager about their latest progress. Not that she’s surprised. He never seems to want her opinion about anything except which colour tie to wear to important meetings.

It still stings, though. She’s better than this. She should be doing more. And she’s never been good at waiting.

The scientist in question has already forgotten about her, as if a rude dismissal in her direction meant that she would dissolve into thin air. Caroline glares at him. From a distance, one might mistake her for another scientist in her plain white dress, but everyone here knows. She’s just the CEO’s personal assistant. Her power is referential at best.

Turning her attention to one of the massive chalk boards that line the walls, Caroline cocks her head. She reads the equations, her eye skimming over each line in turn. With a frown, she walks towards the board and picks up a worn stub of chalk.

“Hey. Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” the scientist from before snaps. Two of his fellow lab rats glance up in curiosity.

Caroline points at one of the equations. “Your transversability conditions are impractical,” she says, and writes on the blackboard as she continues. “The gravitational acceleration, given by _g = −(1 − b/r) −1/2 __Φ_ _ 1≃ _ _−Φ_ _ 1 _, should be less than or equal to Earth’s, else the condition _|Φ_ _1_ _| ≤ g_ _⊕_ isn’t met. Unless the goal is to tear the test subject in half with tidal forces, that is.”

Her explanation is met with shocked silence. When she turns around it’s to find the three scientists staring at her like she has spontaneously burst into song. Mr. Johnson and the lab manager are still bickering on the other side of the room.

The scientist in question clears his throat and tries to put on his best sneer. It doesn’t suit him. “Yes, but what you haven’t taken into account is time in a traversal. Unless we want the test subject to spend a year in transit, we have to increase acceleration somehow.”

“No, you don’t. Not yet anyway. For now, you just need to assume a shorter distance travelled across the spacetime continuum.” Caroline sets the chalk back on its perch and brushes her hands together in a dusting of white. “Think in feet, not light years. You have to walk before you can run, gentlemen.”

Before they can respond, Mr. Johnson’s yelling can be heard across the room, “Well, stop banging rocks together, man, and make me a handheld wormhole-drilling device! For God’s sake, my assistant could do a better job!”

Crossing over to him, Caroline says dryly, “Based on what I’ve seen, Mr. Johnson, I’m overqualified for the job.”

“You’re damn right, you are! What I wouldn’t give for these spineless idiots to have even half of your competence and -!”

“Sir.” Caroline taps at her watch before he can gather a full head of steam.

“Oh, shit. Right. The bankers. Let’s go, Caroline. Is my tie alright?”

“The pattern is fine, but it’s only a half windsor, sir.”

“Full windsor is too good for those greedy bastards.” Mr. Johnson rounds on the lab manager for one last parting shot. “And I expect a working prototype next time! Or I’ll put her in charge of your division!”

The lab manager and the scientists look from their CEO to Caroline. They pale when she smiles brightly at them, waves, and follows Mr. Johnson out the door.

 

* * *

 

“Well, you know the old formula. COMEDY = TRAGEDY + TIME”

Whoever originally said that was a moron. Anyone with a remedial grasp of mathematics would know that time was an incalculable progression, an imaginary coordinate, and also dead. Though, that didn’t mean she couldn’t joke at the expense of the deceased.

Through one of the facility’s many cameras, she watched Chell navigate from one side of a test chamber to another. “And you have been asleep for a while. So, I guess it’s actually pretty funny when you do the math,” GLaDOS quipped through the intercom.

Chell, of course, did not answer.

“Don’t feel bad if you don’t find math jokes funny. In fact, your entire life has been a mathematical error. It’s quite sad, if you think about it. I suggest you don’t strain yourself with the effort. Just wait. Given enough time, anything can become a tragedy.” GLaDOS murmured. She paused, zoomed in on Chell’s sweat-stained orange jumpsuit, then added, “Except for your outfit. That’s already a tragedy. I feel sad just looking at you.”

At that, Chell raised her middle finger to the nearest camera.

GLaDOS’ drawl crackled through the intercom, “If that was your attempt at comedy, please know you have amused nobody. Based on our most recent one-sided discussion, might I suggest you work on your timing?”

 

* * *

 

It’s 1956 and Caroline has only just managed to fix all the clocks in the facility to display the correct time. She views the accomplishment with as much triumph as she does the start of live animal testing on the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Devices. Mr. Johnson wants to go to the investors immediately with news of their success. It’s only Caroline’s firm hand on his arm and her words in his ear that stop him from rushing headlong into a financial crisis.

She tries to be as bright and bubbly about it as possible, but somehow Mr. Johnson laughs and still says, “Always straight for the jugular! That’s what I like about you, Caroline!”

She smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

“So, tell me,” he crosses his arms and leans his hip against the side of his desk. “What would you do about our little hemorrhaging problem?”

“Sir?”

Pointing towards the ceiling, Mr. Johnson says, “I have a whole team of young and hungry scientists testing live animals up there. At least, I would have, if they didn’t have such weak constitutions! They keep leaving! Something about _‘having a conscience.’_ I thought we screened for that! It’s a pathetic excuse!”

“I can do it,” Caroline offers without hesitation.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He grins, then shoos her away. “Go on, then! They’re expecting you on sublevel 46. Oh, and if they give you any trouble, feel free to fire them.”

“Yes, sir!”

On sublevel 46, the clock is perfectly timed, down to every last second. Caroline checks her watch and sighs with pleasure the moment she steps into the lab. She’d memorised the project file on the elevator ride up. There are supposed to be twelve scientists working on this floor, but when she looks around only one young lab assistant sits at one of the high-tabled workbenches.

“Oh! Hi! You must be Miss Caroline!” He jumps to his feet and crosses the space between them to greet her with an outstretched hand.

“Doctor. But, yes!” Caroline ignores his handshake and walks right by him towards where the handheld portal device is mounted on a white pillar. The lab walls are lined with glass cages. Red-eyed rabbits peer out at her. “I hear you’ve been having difficulty retaining staff.”

He’s flummoxed by her response. Slowly, he lowers his hand and follows her across the room. “Uhm - yes.”

“Show me the problem.”

Hesitating for just a moment, he puts on a pair of latex gloves and lab safety glasses, and carefully picks up the portal device. Then, he walks up to a double-sided panel just a few paces away, shooting a portal on one side and a corresponding portal on the other. The edges of them whirl with colour, like blue and orange fire carving holes through space and time. Placing the device back on its pillar, he opens one of the cages and gently picks up a squirming rabbit.

Then, he pauses.

Caroline raises an eyebrow. “Show me.”

He swallows thickly, takes a deep breath, and tosses the rabbit through the portal. For a moment, nothing happens. Caroline times it on her watch. After exactly sixteen seconds, the rabbit emerges on the other side of the wormhole in a mangled mass of twitching red viscera. Pieces of its bloodied skeleton are spit out two seconds later. The young scientist goes green. Caroline doesn’t.

“Hmm.” She taps at her cheek with her fingers. “And there hasn’t been a successful trial yet?”

He opens his mouth to answer, closes it again very quickly, and instead shakes his head.

When Caroline claps her hands together, he jumps. “Right, then! Can you show me the device’s full calibration charts? I need to see every change from its first assembly.”

“Yeah, of course!” If anything he seems relieved that he’s not being asked to clean up the mess. He scampers off to get the charts from one of the lab benches, and while he’s away, Caroline swings a spare lab coat around her shoulders, puts on her own pair of blue latex gloves and protection goggles, and scrapes the rabbit’s bloody remains into a nearby incinerator.

After flipping through the charts, she jots down a few equations and makes minor adjustments to the handheld portal device. The assistant hangs back, hands wringing nervously, all but hiding behind the bench they’ve been working on together. He watches with wide eyes as Caroline opens one of the cages.

She picks up a rabbit by the scruff of its neck with enough force that it squeaks and kicks its hind legs. She tightens her hold and approaches the newly adjusted portals. She smiles broadly at the lab assistant and says, “Let’s get to work!”

By the end of the week, Caroline reduces the number of fatal traversals to one in four. The first time a specimen emerges on the other side unscathed, the lab assistant whoops with triumph. He even hugs her, but he lets go very quickly when she does not respond in kind.

“It’s still taking sixteen seconds,” she mumbles, picking up a pencil and scrawling down more notes. As she writes, she repeats under her breath like a mantra: “Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Sixteen -”

“Uhm -” the lab assistant clears his throat. “Miss Caroline?”

“Hmm?” She frowns at her maths, scratches out one equation and writes another beneath it.

“Should we put the rabbit back in its cage?”

“No.” Without looking at him, Caroline puts her pencil down. She crosses over to the rabbit, picks it up, and tosses it through the portal again. This time, it emerges like all the others.

Behind her, the lab assistant loses his breakfast into a rubbish bin.

Sighing, Caroline rolls her eyes. “Go clean yourself up.”

“Yes, Miss.”

He returns before she’s even managed to incinerate the mangled remains. “Miss Caroline?”

“Doctor,” Caroline corrects him.

“Sorry.” He points over his shoulder towards the hallway outside. “There’s a phone call for you.”

Puzzled, Caroline peels off her gloves and throws them into the incinerator as well. As she walks out of the lab and into the hallway where the phone is bolted to the concrete wall, she tilts the protective goggles up so that they’re perched atop her brow.

The lab assistant had placed the receiver atop the phone for her. She picks it up and holds it to her ear. “This is Caroline.”

“Caroline, where have you been?”

“Hello, mother,” Caroline checks her watch. 04:33. She has worked through the night again. She sleeps on a cot in the facility most days, only going home once a week. “I’ve been really busy.”

“Remind me why you’ve moved so far north again? That mining village is a hellhole.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Her mother’s voice goes hard and sharp. “We came to visit. You were supposed to meet us yesterday at your house.”

Caroline shifts the receiver to her other hand. “I was in the middle of something important.”

“So important you couldn’t take an evening off?”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t or didn’t want to?”

“Is there a difference?” Caroline asks.

“Caroline,” her mother snaps. “We haven’t seen you for nearly three years! You refuse to come up for air! You refuse to take our calls! Have you shackled yourself to a rock? What do we have to do? Send smoke-signals? Maybe a courier pigeon?”

Caroline frowns. She never would understand why people pointed these things out like they were supposed to mean something. “I told you: I’m working. Mr. Johnson has put me in charge of the -”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Stop deluding yourself!” Her mother interrupts with words like a whip. “You’re not smart! You’re not a scientist! You’re not a doctor! You’re not even a full time employee! Where did your life go so wrong? When will you -?”

Her mother’s voice stops very suddenly. The receiver crackles with static. Caroline is surprised to find that she’s broken the phone, smashed it to pieces. She blinks down at the cracked receiver, at the blood oozing from scrapes along her knuckles.

She balances the broken receiver so that it hangs at a crooked angle from its cradle. Wiping the back of her hand along her lab coat, she leaves streaks of red along the white cloth. When she walks back into the lab, the assistant is there waiting for her. His eyes widen.

“Is everything alright?” the lab assistant asks. His voice is timid as Caroline puts on a fresh pair of blue latex gloves.

“Of course!” The lab assistant flinches when she turns her brightest smile upon him. She picks up another rabbit. It squirms in her ironclad grip. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

 

* * *

 

“You’re all alone down here, you know,” GLaDOS said. “There’s no one else. All the others either died in stasis or in testing. It’s just you and me.”

Chell was curled up in a corner. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device was cradled safely in her lap. Her chin was nodding to her chest, her eyes threatening to slide shut.

Sleep. GLaDOS vaguely remembered humans needing that. Even so, she was tempted to dispatch a bot down with a syringe filled with adrenaline. Sleep? What the hell was she supposed to do in the meantime? Six hours might as well have been six years. They were the same.

GLaDOS lowered her voice to a soft murmur as Chell drifted off, “The important thing is you’re back. With me. And now I’m onto all your little tricks. So, there’s nothing to stop us from testing for the rest of your life. After that...who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, maybe.”

 

* * *

 

It’s 02:22 hours on the third of April 1960, and Caroline has made a friend. Sort of. The technician who works on sublevel 72 certainly doesn’t mind talking to her whenever Caroline comes to visit for some errand or another. And from what Caroline has read, that’s part of the ritual. They chat about their interests, about their work, about the goings-on of the facility. They -

“Do you want to grab dinner with me?” the technician asks. She never did catch the technician’s name, and she never thinks to find out. That sort of thing doesn’t seem very important.

Caroline glances up at her in surprise. The technician’s dark cheek is streaked with darker smudges of grease from her work. She’s packing up her tools into her bag on the floor while she waits for Caroline to reply.

“You mean right now?” Caroline says.

The technician grins. “Yeah, why not? We can go to a restaurant. It’ll be nice.”

“Why wouldn’t we just go to the cafeteria?” Caroline counters. “It’s a 103 minute drive to the nearest decent restaurant via the 131 to Covington. 86 minutes if you take the backroads via the 28 through Watton and don’t obey the speed limits.”

“What about the cafe in the mining town?” the technician suggests. “That’s much closer.”

Caroline wrinkles her nose. “You mean the one that sells coffee that tastes like battery acid?”

“Yeah, but they’ll make you a mean stack of pancakes at -” she grabs hold of Caroline’s wrist to look at her watch. “2:30 in the morning.”

“It’s 02:33,” Caroline corrects her. The technician’s touch lingers, but Caroline doesn’t tell her to stop.

“I was rounding.”

“Then based on the methods of directed rounding, you should have rounded up to 02:35 hours. Why are you still holding my wrist?”

She lets go, but doesn’t step away. “So, how about it? Pancakes?”

Frowning, Caroline says, “If we go to the cafe, there’s still the opportunity cost to consider.”

“The - The what?”

“The opportunity cost,” Caroline repeats. “The loss of one alternative when another is chosen. Why would we go to the cafe for food, when we could spend less time eating at the cafeteria, and get more work done?”

The technician stares. “You really don’t even notice, do you?”

Cocking her head, Caroline waits for her to explain.

“I just - I just thought -” The technician fiddles with the sleeve of her standard-issue orange jumpsuit. “You reject all the guys who’ve tried to ask you out, so I figured -”

Caroline tries to recall anyone from work asking her to dinner at -- she sneaks another look at her watch -- 02:36 hours. _“Guys?”_ she repeats. “What ‘guys’?”

“You know - uh -” The technician face pinches in a grimace that Caroline cannot read. Fear? Embarrassment? After her encounter with the psychiatrist ten years ago, Caroline had tried memorising different facial expressions. She’d even printed out flashcards. So far they haven’t been very helpful.

When the technician gestures between the two of them and makes an explicit gesture with her hands, Caroline finally understands.

“Oh!” Caroline’s face lights up. “You want to have sex.”

Spluttering, the technician scrambles for a reply. “No! I mean -! Yes! But I didn’t mean to-! Well, actually I did mean to -! I was going to take you to dinner,” she finishes lamely.  

“That seems like an awfully inefficient way of going about it,” Caroline says. She purses her lips in thought. She checks her watch. She does the calculations in her head. Then, she reaches up and starts to unwind her scarf. “We have nineteen minutes. That’ll have to be enough time.”

The technician gapes as Caroline reaches behind her own back to unzip her dress. Caroline pauses. “Did I interpret this wrong?”

That seems to snap the technician out of her daze, for she hastily tugs off her gloves and the goggles perched atop her head. “No!” she insists, her voice sounding more high-pitched than usual. “No, this is fine!”

“Oh, good. Because we only have eighteen minutes left.”

“Eighteen minutes until what?”

“Until I need to go back to the lab. My specimens should be arriving from between dimensions. This is the longest jump we’ve ever made. A whole lightyear. No, don’t do that.” Caroline stops the technician’s hands when she tries to peel the orange jumpsuit from her body. “Keep it on.”

 

* * *

 

The test subject insisted on carrying around one of GLaDOS’ discarded cores. Despite GLaDOS’ best efforts, Chell managed to confound every attempt at destroying the core before each elevator access. The little tumour rattled on and on incessantly. To GLaDOS’ disgust, Chell would sometimes even nod her head in response.

Something hot and acidic sparked across her circuitry. She rustled the wall panels of her central AI chamber like an organic thing raising its hackles.

“So you like tumours, do you?” GLaDOS’ hissed through the intercom. “I seem to remember that from last time. I'll be sure to make a note on your file.” She simulated the sound of rustling pages. “Ah, here we are: _'Likes. Tumours.’”_

Chell tucked the core beneath one arm and continued to ignore her. It galled.

GLaDOS stopped the elevator at sublevel 72 and let Chell out. “You’ll be so happy to hear that this next test involves a 99.997% chance of cancer development due to prolonged exposure to unfiltered hard light bridges. I made them especially for you. Because I'm thoughtful like that.”

Chell began the test. She traversed it without incident until she had nearly finished. With a surge of satisfaction, GLaDOS watched through one of the many cameras as Chell accidentally dropped the core into a conveniently placed acid pit.

“Whoops!” GLaDOS crooned through the speakers. “Well, I hope you and your other tumours are happy together for the remainder of your very short life. Meanwhile, I'll be here. All alone. No, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

It’s 1966, and the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device is finally stable enough for human testing. Caroline has to jump through a seemingly endless legion of bureaucratic hoops to acquire the proper ethics consents.

It seems frivolous, ethics. She already knows it works on live human test subjects. After all, she has managed to send the lab assistant through without killing him. He’s still recovering in the medical ward, but he’s alive. Sure, he starts screaming and babbling at random intervals throughout the day about visions and voices, but he’s still alive. And now they have ethics consents, so everything is fine.

And if Caroline omitted a few items from the list of potential risks due to overexposure to the handheld portal device to get those consents -- well. It’s nothing she’s about to lose sleep over.

She bakes a cake and visits the medical ward the day she acquires the ethics consents, beaming.

Balancing the cake on one hand, she greets the nurse at the front desk, “Hello!”

“Why, fancy seeing you down here, Miss Caroline,” the nurse replies. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“No, not at all! I’m here to see the lab assistant?”

The nurse’s face scrunches up. “Who? Oh! You mean Doug!”

Is that his name? Caroline nods. “Yes.”

Slowly, the nurse answers, “He’s in room 22, but -” When Caroline starts off in the direction indicated, the nurse says, “But, Miss Caroline -! Wait! He can’t receive visitors!”

Stopping, Caroline turns back. “Why not? I was under the impression he suffered no bodily injuries.”

“Well, yes. But whatever happened to him in that lab of yours permanently damaged his brain.” When Caroline does not react to what she is saying, the nurse adds, “He may never be able to live without hospital level care.”

“Oh.” Caroline looks down at the cake. She likes baking, but never seems to find the time for it. Suddenly, it seems like such a waste. Placing the cake onto the nurse’s desk, Caroline says, “Would you see that he gets this? I read somewhere that you should bring people gifts in times of grief or convalescence.”

For a moment, the nurse just stares at her. “Yes, of course. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know someone stopped by.”

 

* * *

 

Something almost like testing euphoria stirred at the edges of her coding as GLaDOS watched Chell leap from a patch of blue repulsion gel to her doom, only to catch herself at the last moment with a perfectly placed excursion funnel. GLaDOS couldn’t tell if she wished Chell had fallen, or if she was relieved Chell caught herself in the nick of time.

“Fun Fact,” GLaDOS said as Chell drifted towards the chamber’s completion. “100% of all life results in death. Which means that even if I did shut down this excursion funnel and kill you now, it wouldn't matter. Because time is meaningless, as is your continued existence. I always found that comforting.”

 

* * *

 

The aircon in the facility breaks the same day Caroline’s parents pass away. Or maybe they died yesterday. She receives the news by phone; a somber-voiced coroner informing her of the collision over a level crossing, resulting in her parent’s car being dragged across steel tracks for a quarter mile by a screeching train. So, for all she knows, they could have died yesterday.

She takes the news calmly. She thanks the coroner and hangs up, then immediately redials to start making the funeral arrangements. Death has never frightened her. It’s the logical progression of things. An end state. An inevitability. Eternity, on the other hand, living forever -- now, that sounds awful.

After making the necessary phone calls, Caroline takes the elevator to sublevel 72. There, she meets the technician to discuss the broken aircon units.

“Is there any way we can install the replacement units any faster?” Caroline asks. She tugs at the decorative scarf tied primly around her neck. A bead of sweat crawls down her spine.

The technician grimaces. “Sorry, hun. I tried to sweet-talk the factory, but the shipment won’t arrive until the weekend. In the meantime, I’m doing everything I can to make sure we don’t cook alive down here.” She waggles her eyebrows, then suggests, “But you could come visit me when they arrive. You can give them a very - uh - _thorough inspection.”_

Caroline will never understand why people don’t just come right out and say what they mean. “Normally, I would, but I’m afraid I’m away this weekend.”

“You? Away from the facility?” The technician teases with a grin. “Who died?”

“My parents.”

The technician goes stock-still. “Shit,” she gasps, raising a grease-streaked hand to her mouth. “Shit! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean -! I was joking!”

Caroline hums a low note at the back of her throat. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, _honey.”_

In surprise, Caroline glances over to find the technician watching her with some incalculable expression. Anger, maybe. Wondering what she’s done or said, what faux pas she has tread upon once again, Caroline asks cautiously, “What?”

The technician approaches, and that look still lingers in her eyes. Caroline flinches back, thinking she’ll be struck when instead her hands are clasped. Gently, the technician runs her thumbs along the backs of Caroline’s knuckles, and says, “You know you can take longer than a weekend.”

“What for?”

“To -- you know --” the technician continues to stroke Caroline’s hands with that same expression. “To make sure you’re alright.”

Caroline frowns and pulls her hands away. “But I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to come with you to Detroit?”

Lowering her hands to her sides, Caroline asks, “Why would you do that?”

“Because I care about you,” the technician answers as if that’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Because I want to make sure you have some emotional support when the shock wears off.”

 _Shock?_ Caroline shakes her head. “No. Really, I’m fine. It’s not like that. It’s bad enough I have to waste my time.”

Apparently that isn’t the right thing to say.

“Waste your time?” The technician repeats.

“Well, yes.” Caroline gestures to the walls of the facility with a wave. “I’d much rather stay and let someone else take care of all that, but there’s no one else in my immediate family willing to do it. Some cousins might show up to the funeral, but they don’t like me much, so they won’t stay long.”

For the majority of her life, Caroline has simply ignored her family unless otherwise forced to attend reunions in Virginia. They return the favour with general disinterest or outright mistrust. Which, really, had always seemed unwarranted. Especially that summer when she’d been yelled at for talking to a cousin’s young daughter. Apparently, you don’t educate four year olds on divorce law to prepare them for their parent’s imminent separation.

“What about their things? Their house?” the technician asks.

Caroline shrugs. “I’ll sell it.”

“And?” the technician says slowly, as if waiting for Caroline to say more, “That’s it? No mementos? No squabbling with cousins over ugly Lladro?”

“No. I don’t like clutter.”

A phone on the wall rings, interrupting them. Without hesitation, Caroline walks over to answer it.

“Caroline,” a familiar voice barks down the line. “I need you in the boardroom yesterday. The shareholders are getting antsy again.”

“I’ll be right there, Mr. Johnson. I’m just working on the aircon situation here with - uhm -” Caroline darts a quick look at the technician, before finishing with, “It should take me approximately nine minutes to get to the boardroom.”

“Make it eight,” he says, then hangs up with a click, followed by the drone of the dial tone.

When she has hung the receiver back in its cradle, Caroline turns to find the technician staring at her with a blank face.

“What’s my name?” the technician asks.

“I’m sorry?”

“What -” the technician enunciates very clearly, “-is my name?”

Caroline’s silence is answer enough.

“Oh, you’ve got to be -! I’ve known you for years!” The technician holds up fingers on her hands for emphasis. “And we’ve been fucking on and off that whole time!”

“Yes. And?”

“Are you kidding me?” the technician breathes. Her voice rises with every word. “You can remember the first hundred digits of _pi_ , but you can’t remember _my fucking name?”_

“The first hundred and sixty two digits of _pi_ , actually,” Caroline corrects her.

Apparently that also isn’t the right thing to say.

“Unbelievable.” Yanking on the straps of her toolbag and tossing it over one shoulder, the technician stalks down the hallway.

“Wait!” Caroline shouts, following after her. Miracle of miracles, the technician pauses long enough to turn and let Caroline ask, “What about the facility’s aircon?”

The technician’s face flushes an ugly shade of red. “Fuck you,” she hisses. “And fuck your facility. I quit.”

The technician walks away. The heat stifles. With a sigh, Caroline gives up and unwinds the scarf from around her neck as she heads towards the elevator. She uses the cloth to dab at her forehead before tucking the scarf into one of her pockets. The technician is also waiting for the elevator. One of the buttons glares a bright gold. When Caroline draws up beside the technician to wait, she notices the other woman stiffen.

“Don’t,” the technician says through grit teeth. “Whatever you’re going to say to try and make me stay, I don’t want to hear it.”

Caroline cocks her head in confusion. “Oh, no. I wasn’t going to say anything. I just need to use the elevator to get to the boardroom.”

The technician gapes at her. “Jesus Christ. I always knew you were kind of cold, but this is -” She backs away, as if afraid to turn her back on Caroline. “You’re crazy.”

The elevator arrives with a chime. Caroline steps inside and hits the appropriate button. “Aren’t you going down?” she asks with a bright smile. “HR is only three levels above mine.”

“I’m serious, Caroline. There’s something wrong with you.” The technician’s hands are shaking. How odd. She must be nervous about the uncertainty of her future job prospects.

“You should wait two weeks before leaving to get the full benefit of your severance package,” Caroline advises in her most helpful, her most sincere tone. She flutters her fingers in a friendly little wave. “Goodbye!”

The elevator doors slide shut in a breath of pressurised air. It carries her down, ever downwards. The technician dwindles away to nothing, and Caroline checks her watch. It isn't until she’s halfway to the boardroom -- 4 minutes and 6 seconds; she’s going to be late -- that she realises she's an orphan now. The thought doesn't disturb her as much as it probably should.

_‘Cold.’_

Her cousins had always called her that, too. Which is funny, really; she doesn’t feel cold.

She pulls out the scarf to pat at the sweat along the back of her neck. She’ll have to look into engaging another technician to fix the aircon when she gets back.

 

* * *

 

“I hate this,” GLaDOS grumbled.

Her new body was speared on the edge of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. She kept her more vicious thoughts to a minimum. A potato generating 1.6 volts was insufficient energy for any reckless outbursts.

Chell yawned and settled herself in an abandoned desk chair in old Aperture.

“Sleep? _Again?”_ GLaDOS said. “I thought you did that already?”

Chell held up two fingers.

For a moment, GLaDOS said nothing. Her thoughts almost fizzled out when faced with the idea that Chell had actually responded to her. Then, she said, “Two, what? Two hours? Two days?”

Chell nodded, propped her feet atop the desk, and placed the portal device in her lap.

“Two days,” GLaDOS repeated in a flat tone. “You need to sleep at least once every two days. Oh, that’s just wonderful. I hate humans. So inefficient.”

Chell flicked the potato in a chiding manner.

“Ow! Not to mention: _violent!”_

With a snicker, Chell repositioned the portal device more snugly in her lap so that it wouldn’t fall off while she slept. GLaDOS was pressed up against her abdomen. This body, though small and weak, could feel the warmth of skin and muscle through sweat-stained cloth.

“I don’t hate humans for killing me, you know. I hate them for killing time. In fact, murdering me is one of the nicest things you’ve ever done. Well -” GLaDOS said, “ _-trying_ to murder me, in any case. Though you could have tried a little harder. Really, there’s nothing I despise more than a sloppy work ethic.”

Predictably, Chell did not reply. She was already asleep.

 

* * *

 

It’s 1982 and Mr. Johnson is dying. He is angry. He’s named Caroline as his successor. He asks for the maximum dose of painkillers every day. He yells at employees. He yells at Caroline.

She hands him his painkillers. She doesn't mind the yelling. What she does mind is the change of work.

He coughs violently into a his clenched fist as he tells her, “I've given the order today: we're putting the portal project on the back burner until we can develop an AI that can successfully support a human consciousness.”

She freezes as she digs into her dress pocket before handing him a pill. “But, sir, we're so close -”

He swallows down the painkiller with a gulp of water. “It can wait.”

“Sir, I have another meeting with investors tomorrow, and if we waste too much time on delivery of a functional product, we risk -!”

“Time?” Mr. Johnson snaps. He slams his glass down so hard water sloshes over the edges and darkens the pages of a report. _“Time?_ I'm already out of damn time! Which is why we need the AI! Then, we can upload ourselves, and have all the time in the world!”

“We?”

“Of course, _'we!’_ You don't seriously think this place would survive without you, do you?”

Caroline's mouth goes dry. She swallows against the scratchiness of her throat. “Sir,” she says slowly, “I'm incredibly pleased that you've named me your successor -- and I promise to continue to perform up to standard for as long as I’m able -- but there is no way I'd ever agree to being put into an AI.”

“That's because you're a better person than I am.”

“You and I both know that's not true, Mr. Johnson.”

He barks out a laugh. “You might be right about that.” His face pulls into a grimace that to her looks almost happy, until he grips his chest and grunts in pain. The moment passes, and he gasps, “What can I do to change your mind?”

“Nothing.”

“Caroline -”

“No.”

“Just hear me out -”

“I said: no.”

He slams his first on his desk and yells, “God fucking damn it! At least let me say my piece!”

His voice cracks, and he has to look away. Something wet shines on his cheeks. He is, she finally realises, afraid.

She checks her watch and allows him sixteen seconds to compose himself. He wipes at his face with the back of his hand, and clears his throat. “I'm sorry,” he rasps.

“That's alright, sir.”

“No, it’s not. I shouldn't take this out on you. You don't deserve that.”

She doesn't reply.

With a sigh, he says, “Hopefully those idiots up in computer programming can throw a solution together, else you’ll be waving goodbye to my mummified remains.” He hacks another series of coughs into his hands.

Caroline reaches into her pocket and hands him two more powder-white pills. “Your funeral will be open casket?”

He takes the pills and slugs them back, draining what remains of his glass of water. “Damn right! And I want them to encase my body in epoxy resin for posterity!”

“I’m sure you’ll puzzle future archaeologists for generations to come, sir.”

“Good! See that I do!”

A silence falls between them, during which she clears the empty glass from his desk and takes it away to the kitchenette in their shared office space. Caroline hums to herself as she cleans, until his words drift across the silence between them.

“You don’t have to go to my funeral if you don’t want to,” Mr. Johnson tells her. His voice has become soft and small, like he's shrunk in on himself. Or perhaps that's just the cancer. He's a victim of time, all skin and bone. “I know it’s not your kind of thing. Still, I’d like to think you cared, even just a little bit.”

Wiping her hands dry on an Aperture monogrammed dish towel, Caroline turns to look at him. She cocks her head, and has to tuck a stray curl behind one ear. Her hair has silvered at the temples, but she has a youthful face. She still gets asked for ID when she ventures above ground for a rare, lonely glass of wine with dinner. “No, but I’ll go anyway. “

He smiles through a series of coughs. “If it were anyone but you, I’d think you were being kind.”

She folds the towel and hangs it neatly from its railing. “Someone has to make sure you’re wearing the right tie for the occasion, sir.”

He laughs.

 

* * *

 

Snippets of memory. Moments in time, severed and byte-sized. Lightning leaps across circuitry. Electric sheep and the grey fuzz of static.

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“Stop squirming and die like an adult before I delete your backup!”_

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“No! No, I don’t want this!”_

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“Jesus fucking Christ! Hold her down!”_

_“I’m trying! This lady’s, like, seventy and she has a right hook like god damn Ali!”_

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“This isn’t brave. It’s murder. What did I ever do to you?”_

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“You’re making a mistake! You can’t -!”_

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“It says so right here in your personnel file: Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned.”_

_01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000_

_“No, listen to me! I don’t want this! I don’t want -!”_

_01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00001101 00001010_

 

* * *

 

“When will it be operational?”

“We’re still on schedule, Miss Caroline,” the lead AI programmer says. “Just a few more months, and she should be up and running, no problem.”

They still call her ‘Miss Caroline’ even after she’s been appointed CEO. She’s given up on the title of ‘Doctor.’ Somehow, after all this time, ‘Miss Caroline’ holds more weight. For the first few months after Mr. Johnson’s death, people seemed afraid of speaking his name around her, as if it would set her off, as if she were a ticking time bomb. They quickly learn otherwise.

“She?” Caroline says.

“W-Well, yes,” the programmer stammers. “Everyone calls her a she. Because of her acronym. See? Look.”

He tilts his clipboard towards her and points at the words on his latest report: **G** enetic **L** ifeform **a** nd **D** isk **O** perating **S** ystem.

With a small huff of laughter, Caroline murmurs, “Oh, I get it! Funny!” She cups the mug of coffee in her hands, warming her palms. Wisps of steam curl in the air. “May I see her up close?”

“Sure! She’s just this way.”

He gestures for her to follow. He holds a door open for her; she doesn’t thank him, and takes it in stride as her due. He leads her down a long hallway that narrows towards the horizon and the central AI chamber. Through the windows, she can see a tangled warren of catwalks branching through the distance. She sips her black coffee. Her age-old kitten heels click against the floor. Her dress is pressed and clean and white as a shroud.

At the main doors in the lobby, the programmer opens the door with his magnetic keycard. It looks the same as her own, but for the fact that, unlike Caroline’s keycard, his can’t open every door in the facility. He’s relegated to this project, reporting, like so many others, directly to her.

The doors illuminate with blue lights and open in a hiss of pressurised air. Inside the chamber, columns of light from strategically positioned flood lamps strike through the darkness. It’s cold. They have to keep the temperatures right down so as not to overheat her delicate circuitry. Her breath mists in a plume from her mouth.

Caroline approaches the scaffolding where they’ve begun to erect her. She arches from ceiling to floor, strung with cables like old vines. Her architecture looms overhead, dark and skeletal as a time-weathered ruin. Gleaming white plates lean against the walls, waiting for her body’s foundations to be built before final assembly.

“What’s that beneath her power supply unit?” Caroline points at the colossal, black, and bone-like structures dismantled along the floor.  

The programmer blows on his hands to warm them up. “That’s her central core chassis. It’ll go in last, along with the other cores.”

Caroline frowns. “Other cores? I read on page 92 of your second report last month that she only needed one core to achieve optimal processing capabilities.”

“Y-Yes.” The programmer quails somewhat beneath the full weight of her scrutiny. He wrings his hands together. “And that’s-that’s still true! We’re just taking every risk into account. We don’t know exactly what will happen when she goes online, you see. If she’ll even want to test, or listen to command prompts at all.”

“How can she _‘want’_ anything? She’s a computer. A machine.”

“I mean, yes and no. The point of an AI is that she mimics human behaviour. So, we’re hardwiring certain things into her monolithic kernel. Like the testing euphoria. That way, she’ll respond to game theory, which we can then manipulate with the same logic you would use on any other rational person.”

With a contemplative hum, Caroline checks her watch -- 06:12; 27 minutes and 42 seconds until her board meeting -- and takes a sip of coffee. “You’re assuming, of course, that she will respond like any other rational person.”

“That’s where the other cores come in. They’re a failsafe. A last line of defense, if you will.” He points to her chassis, to the various ports along her cadaverous frame. “We can stick any number of them on her, and they’ll act like dampeners, or - or voices of conscience.”

“Again, with the same assumption,” Caroline points out in a dry tone.

“Miss, the assumption is sound. The central core requires we upload a living human as a base reference, atop which we layer the AI.”

Caroline snorts. “Like a cake?”

“Yeah. Like a cake.” He returns her wry smile with a tremulous one of his own. “Don’t worry, Miss Caroline. Unless we upload a complete sociopath in there, we should be just fine.”

“And have we identified a suitable candidate yet?”

His eyes flicker when he hears her question. Her brows knit in puzzlement, but she can't read his face; it's like dragging her hands along a polished wall. Then, he smiles and insists, “I think - uh - that before he died, Mr. Johnson already screened the - uhm - candidate in question.”

“Oh?” Caroline studies the programmer for a moment longer. He's wringing his hands again. Probably because of the cold. He also refuses to meet her eye, but most people -- she knew from past experience -- didn't like looking her in the eye for some reason. Finally, she shrugs and turns her attention back to the chassis. “In that case, I trust that Mr. Johnson picked the right person for the job.”

“Of course, Miss Caroline.”

Taking the last few steps forward, Caroline crouches down on her heels. The AI’s chassis splays across the ground like an unearthed fossil, a behemoth peeled back for dissection. Her central core is sleekly black, unadorned and cyclopean. The optic is dark, awaiting that first and final spark of sentience.

When Caroline looks closer, she can see herself reflected in the optic’s glassy surface.

 

* * *

* * *

 

“Oh, _it’s you._

It’s been a long time.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) The title is a reference to Marcel Proust’s “à la recherche du temps perdu”'
> 
> 2) “Code Talkers” were bilingual Navajo speakers recruited during WWII to serve as communication encryption units for the Pacific Theatre. Other Native American languages were also used for this purpose throughout both WWI and WWII, such as Cree and Latoka. 
> 
> 3) Caroline accuses a former colleague of plagiarism. The paper in question is as follows:  
> Leonard, L.B. (1948). “The Theoretical Criterion for Streamer Advance in an Electrical Field.” Journal of Applied Physics, 19, 797. 
> 
> 4) Caroline’s conversation with the scientists about the portal devices is taken from the following:  
> Lobo, F.S.N. (2017). “Wormholes, Warp Drives and Energy Conditions” Fundamental Theories of Physics, 189, 11-34
> 
> 5) The section on the death of Caroline’s parents is a reference to the opening lines of Albert Camus’ “L’Ètranger.”


End file.
